16A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NATION
MONDAY,AUG.20,2001
Scientists question Bush's cell numbers
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON The world's largest federation of scientists questioned whether there really are 60 embryonic stem cell lines available for federally funded research and challenged the Bush administration to immediately identify them.
President Bush, in an announcement last week, said that federally funded researchers could use any of more than 60 embryonic cell lines that he said existed, but the American Association for the Advancement of Science said in a statement Friday that there was doubt about the number and origins of those cell lines.
"Many of our scientific colleagues have questioned that number, believing it to be much smaller," the AAAS statement said. It urged the Bush administration to immediately make public the sources and identities of the cell lines.
"Until leading scientists in the field can assess their quality, it is not possible to determine whether the existing collection of those lines will be sufficient" for research, the statement said.
Dr. Lana Skirboll, the NIH researcher who surprised the research community by finding 60 cell lines at the request of the White House, said that she couldn't identify all of the researchers that had developed cell lines because some of the labs "are not quite ready to announce."
"We will in the not-too-distant future make sure that everybody knows exactly where the 60 lines are," she said.
Skirboll said there were five labs with stem cell lines that hadn't been announced publicly because of "commercial confidential and other security issues."
and other security threats. The AAAS statement was issued as federal health officials prepared to meet this month with officers of a University of Wisconsin foundation. The officials will be working out the legal details to allow government-funded researchers to use cell lines
developed at the university.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, or WARF, controls the absolute rights to the five best-known and most widely studied embryonic stem cells, which were created by Dr. James Thomson of the university. But the foundation also holds patents that may affect all 60 of the cell lines touted by President Bush.
How the claim will be resolved is one of the sticky issues to be negotiated with the National Institutes of Health, said Andy Cohn of WARF.
Control WARF. Officials said details of the meeting were still being sorted out, but the parties are expected to negotiate ways to satisfy any patent claims WARF has against embryonic cell lines created by laboratories outside the United States.
U. S. WARF officials said they believed that those foreign cell lines must be licensed under WARF's patent rights before they can be imported for use by American scientists.
NAACP feels snubbed by President Bush
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — NAACP leaders, already unhappy about the White House's conservative agenda, are upset by President Bush's failure to meet with them to discuss civil rights.
In a July 31 letter, Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, asked Bush for a closeddoor audience to air a variety of concerns.
concerns.
"As you witnessed firsthand a year ago at our national convention, our members are very politically active and astute," Mfume
wrote. "Despite whatever philosophical differences may exist, the absence of a dialogue can only make them worse."
A week later, White House scheduling director Bradley Blakeman sent a reply saying Mfume's request had been received, but giving no indication of when a meeting would take place.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Mfume's letter was being handled like any other request for time with Bush.
"The request is under review," Fleischer said. "The president reaches out to all kinds of American constituencies and will continue to do so.
But NAACP officials, noting that the reply did not come from Bush himself, his chief of staff or his top aides, felt snubbed.
"We're waiting. We're eager and willing to sit down and talk," said board chairman Julian Bond. "And even though the White House is the people's house, you can't just go knock on the door."
Bush attended a fund-raiser this week at a Denver hotel that was being picketed by the NAACP.
At the NAACP's convention last month, Bond accused the
president of being a puppet of the political right. Bush ignored Bond's remarks, but Fleischer said Bond had gone too far.
Bush did not attend the convention but sent a videotaped message highlighting his diverse Cabinet and expressing a desire to ensure the Republican Party "keeps faith with the memory of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass."
Mfume told Bush that he wanted to discuss Social Security reform, hate crimes, education, health care, election reform, economic development and "the general state of race relations in America."
Expert blames Ford design not Firestone tire quality
$1 billion at stake in latest lawsuit plaguing company
The Associated Press
McALLEN, Texas — An automotive expert testified Saturday in a $1 billion lawsuit against Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. that vehicle design, not tire design, caused a rollover accident that injured four members of a South Texas family last year.
Chris Shapley, an independent automotive engineer who specializes in vehicle dynamics, was the latest witness to point the blame at Ford Motor Co.
The lawsuit — the first of many similar ones against the tire maker to reach trial in the United States — was filed by Dr. Joel Rodriguez, whose brother, son and wife were injured when their Ford Explorer blew a tire and flipped in March 2000.
"When you lose the belt, you don't lose all of the things that a car does for you, just some of them," Shapley said. "It's going to disturb you a little bit, but it should not throw you out of control."
Shapley was referring to tread belt separations on tires, which prompted a recall of 6.5 million tires by Firestone last summer
The recalled tires have been linked to at least 203 deaths and 70 injuries. In May, Ford Motor Co. said it would replace 13 million more Firestone tires.
Plaintiffs claim faulty tires led to the wreck on a Mexican toll road, leaving Rodriguez's wife,
39-year-old Marisa, with garbled speech and an IQ of 79.
Lawyers for Firestone insist a flaw with the Ford Explorer, not their tires, led to the crash.
However, Lampe insisted Ford solely was to blame for the accident.
On Friday, Bridgestone/Firestone chief executive John Lampe testified that there were flaws with some Firestone tires causing tread to separate.
"We take responsibility for our tires, and tires are part of the issue, but doggone it, we have to look at the vehicles," Lampe said. "All manufacturers see separations in their tires. Separation is not the cause of the problem; it's a result of something."
Lampe said 42 of 43 rollovers involving Ford Explorers in Venezuela were on competitor's tires. Bridgestone/Firestone has said its tires were made according to specifications set by Ford and that tread separations do not cause rollovers.
When asked by Judge Filemon Vela if tread separation was the result of a problem with Ford Explorers, Lampe said company research so far was inconclusive.
Firestone has settled more than 150 cases, mostly involving tires on Explorers, for undisclosed sums. Attorneys for Rodriguez have already settled their case against Ford for $6 million.
The trial resumed Saturday to make up for the half day of testimony missed on Thursday when a juror's wife had a baby.
RECYCLING JUST GOT EASIER!
KU Recycling has undergone some recent changes, which means LESS SORTING FOR YOU!
The recycling centers are now labeled for one type of office paper only, which includes white papers and all the papers previously in Office Pak. Please help us by following these simple guidelines when recycling your office waste paper.
OFFICE PAK: computer, white & colored sheet paper, junk mail catalogs with staples, sticky nots, soft bound text books.
NEWSPAPER: UDK, LJW, NY Times, USA Today, etc.
PHONE BOOKS: any local or regional phone books, KU's Spring Summer & Fall course catalogs.
MAGAZINES: please box up any glossy magazines, journals or glossy catalogs that are glued rather than stapled.
- Visit www.ehs.ukans.edu/recycling for a schedule of collection times.
- Please don't stack cardboard and large boxes of recyclables on top of bins
- Call 864-2855 for assistance with special pickups or office clean outs.
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